Company designs sleeping bags made for sleeping

Tuesday

Feb 26, 2013 at 3:15 AMFeb 28, 2013 at 8:52 AM

By Samantha Allensallen@fosters.com

DOVER — Inside the Cocheco Falls Millworks building off Central Avenue downtown, New England Mountain (NEMO) Equipment employees say they're working to make outdoor adventuring a more accessible hobby for the masses.

Director of Product Design Suzanne Turrell says most people shy away from camping overnight because they have difficulty sleeping in strange positions, inside traditional sleeping bags. This past fall, the company released a new design for bags that allow campers to twist and turn in the night and sleep on their sides, to make the experience more comfortable, they say.

“If you think about how you sleep and how people move around in the night, it's not natural to not move,” added Connie Yang, NEMO director of engineering. “We found in our research people didn't like sleeping outdoors and didn't like going camping because they never slept well.”

Turrell said their new designs will change the way people fundamentally think about getting outdoors and exploring nature.

“We've been focused on breaking down the barriers that keep people from the outdoors,” she said.

NEMO Equipment was created in 2002 by Cam Brensinger, a then-graduate student at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), who spent an uncomfortable night in freezing temperatures after hiking to the top of Mount Washington. After visiting the 6,289-foot summit, he returned to school and thought up the company in his graduate thesis before bringing the business idea to life.

The company moved its headquarters from Nashua to Dover in 2011.

Huddled over a writing desk together, working on ideas for the company's website, Yang and Turrell said it can take anywhere from a few months to a few years to come up with one new concept. The two also test their products first-hand and ventured to Mount Washington to test the company's new “Isopod” tent design last winter.

The striking bright-orange structure, made from metallic fabric designed to lock in warmth, is currently “out of stock” on the company website at a whopping $7,900. The two women said that during the warmer temperatures of the winter of 2012 the ice and snow to which the tent had been anchored had melted.

Along with the new line of 360-degree sleep system bags — called “spoon bags” which are priced between $229 to $415 — a sleeping bag will be released in fall 2013 with a price tag of about $1,000. The “Canon -40” is a bag that is appropriately termed for its use — to keep a camper warm in -40 degree temperatures.

NEMO Equipment sleeping bags are designed “in house” in Dover and manufactured overseas in Asia as well as in the United States, their public relations department says. They utilize state-of-the-art fabrics, including PrimaLoft for insulation, made in the U.S., and down feather material from France and Eastern Europe.

The Canon -40 bag also has “thermal gills” which can be unzipped, should a person become overheated, and has a “stovepipe” top where a user zips the bag over their face and breathes through the small hole to reduce the risk for accumulated condensation causing discomfort in the night. The bag can also be customized to unzip from the bottom, so a user can sit upright to make a meal or read over a lantern, while still encased in the bag.

NEMO Equipment representatives say the designs are not only for the everyday consumer, but are also used by those involved in Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions (ALE) and the nation's military. Yang said it can be very comforting for their customers to know the same equipment is by U.S. Navy SEALS.

“Our focus has been on creating the next generation of cutting edge products — leveraging our extensive knowledge of commercial products for specific use with our war fighters and law enforcement customers,” NEMO Public Relations representative Kate Ketschek said. “Many of our elite war fighters have depended upon NEMO tents, shelters, sleeping gear and specialty items in the austere battlefield environments of Afghanistan, Iraq and other areas of conflict.”

She added with dozens of testers in place who test their products all over the world, about 300 revisions came back before the first launch of the company's spoon bag and almost all of them were incorporated or considered for the final design. Today, NEMO Equipment has about 20 different bag designs and styles.

Designers Turrell and Yang say they are doing what they love in the hopes of inspiring younger people to pick up the fulfilling hobby of outdoor adventuring and camping.

“Some of the younger kids like video games and are not allowed to go outside,” Turrell said. “It's a different world we live in.”

“We want to get those kids involved and let them know how much fun it is to be outdoors,” Yang said.

For the future, NEMO Equipment is forecasting an 80 to 90 percent growth for next year. The small operation, with just 19 employees based out of their Dover office, says their development has been both “significant and steady,” since they began selling products in 2006.